Dear Beloved Reader, we're going to be real with you. We're asking you to join our membership program so we can become fully financially sustainable (and you get some cool perks too!) With plummeting ad rates across the media industry, we're at an urgent risk of shutting down. And we don't want you to face Trump and his kind without the unique resources we provide. If everyone reading this only gave $12, we could raise enough money for the entire year in just one day. For the price of a single lunch out, you can help save us. We're an independent feminist media site, led entirely by people of color, and that pays everyone who writes for us. If Everyday Feminism has been useful to you, please take one minute to keep us publishing the articles you've come to rely on us for. Thank you! Click here to join!

For many of us, the rights of the incarcerated are the rights of our friends, family members, and community activists. How many of us stop regularly to consider the ways in which the imprisoned are granted certain fundamental rights that are deemed to be necessary in a civil society?

Prisoners’ rights are loosely described as the nature and extent of the privileges afforded to individuals kept in custody or confinement because they have been convicted of performing an unlawful act.

Over the course of U.S. history, incarcerated rights at times have been established at the state level, while more recently, prisoners’ rights have also been established and protected by the federal government.

Due to history’s betrayal of basic human rights afforded to the imprisoned, prisoners and the detained are now guaranteed civil liberties that at the least serve to respect their dignity as human beings.

However, despite the supposed “guarantee” of these rights, prisoners all over the U.S. are forced to serve out sentences in inhumane and torturous conditions.

And the prisoners in California have had enough.

The California Prisoner Hunger Strike

Since July 8th, close to 30,000 prisoners in the California state prison system have been refusing food as part of a massive, targeted hunger strike. Some even say that they are willing to die if their demands are not met.

Image by Rashid Johnson (Red Onion Prison in Virginia) in support of CA hunger strikers

So what are these (un)reasonable demands that prison officials are willing to risk lives to deny to incarcerated people? What exactly are California prisoners wishing to bring attention to and calling for in their strike?

Prisoners are calling for 5 simple and completely reasonable changes.

1. End Group Punishment and Administrative Abuse

A common tactic used in California prisons to control behavior is punishing large groups of inmates for the actions of one or a few.

Strikers are asking for an end to this unfair practice that is used for everything from justifying solitary confinement to denying leisure and recreational privileges.

2. Modify Gang Status Criteria and End ‘Debriefing’ Policies

One of the many justifications used to hold prisoners in long-term solitary confinement is “active gang affiliation.”

Prisoners are determined to be “active” gang members using faulty, outdated, and sometimes illegal criteria.

Additionally, “debriefing” processes (whereby prisoners offer information about other prisoners’ gang activity) are used to as a demand for an end to solitary confinement.

This practice is abusive and actively puts inmates and their families in danger.

3. End Long-Term Solitary Confinement

Imagine spending every day for nine years alone, barely seeing another human being.

Those inmates who are indefinitely kept in solitary confinement are denied access to photographs of family or friends, adequate exercise materials, and educational courses that require proctored exams (among a host of other programs and privileges).

Striking inmates are demanding that long-term solitary prisoners be allowed access programming and privileges that can enrich their lives while inside.

I’m calling in support of the prisoners on hunger strike. The governor has the power to stop the torture of solitary confinement. I urge the governor to compel the CDCR to enter into negotiations to end the strike. Right now is their chance to enter into clear, honest negotiations with the strikers to end the torture.

2. Engage Your Community

The more voices that are calling for an end to these abusive policies, the more amplified the sacrifice of striking inmates becomes.

One simple way to amplify their voices is to get your community engaged. Make sure that the people you spend your time with know about the strike.

There are lots of ways to do this.

Send them an e-mail asking them to sign this petition. We all know that petitions are a common form of slacktivism, but petitions with large numbers of signatures from diverse constituencies are far more likely to be taken seriously and to be entered into the public record. Plus, it’s a great entry point into engaging your community in wider activism.

You can also fast in solidarity. When your community sees you refusing food and asks why, you have an automatic entry into a conversation about the importance of this prisoner-led movement.

The more people you can get committed to acting in solidarity, the more the inmates’ sacrifice is amplified.

3. Organize or Attend an Action or Teach-In

Countless groups around the United States are organizing actions or teach-ins to raise awareness about the strike and inspire action.

Organize a potluck for friends, and ask them all to chip in some money to support the campaign. Have some intentional conversation during the meal about what’s happening, and ask people to contribute what they can. Then donate it here! Don’t forget to add your event to this event timeline.

Reach out to local prison reform groups, and ask them if you can support any of their solidarity work!

Check out the calendar of actions, and add your voice by offering to help organize or support the work! Then make sure your community comes out in force.

Mass Imprisonment Affects Everyone

Whether you’ve been locked up or not, have friends or family in prison or not, are on papers or off, mass incarceration is one of the most important civil rights issues of our time.

When you account for the six million people under correctional supervision in the United States and their friends and families, approximately half of all Americans are directly affected by mass incarceration, and people of Color are disproportionately affected.

Even if you think are not personally connected to the problem, you are. More than $1 trillion of our cumulative tax dollars have been funneled into this oppressive system, while our school systems fail and social services continue to be cut.

By supporting the actions of incarcerated men and women who are fighting for justice, we ally ourselves with some of the most marginalized in society; those who the state seeks to deny a voice through government-sponsored violence.

By supporting the actions of incarcerated men and women fighting for justice, we ally ourselves with the families of the millions who are locked up in the U.S. for non-violent, frivolous offenses.

By supporting the actions of incarcerated men and women fighting for justice, we stand up against the new Jim Crow.

Dr. Venus E. Evans-Winters is a Contributing Writer for Everyday Feminism and an Associate Professor of Education and Faculty Affiliate of Women and Gender Studies. Her interests are school resilience, urban education reform and policy, critical race theory, and feminism(s). She is the author of Teaching Black Girls: Resiliency in Urban Classrooms as well as several scholarly articles and book chapters. Follow her on Twitter @ileducprofand.